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DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data

theatlantic.com

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Re: DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data

#271

Post by javcasas »

belter wrote: post #245

Here is my prediction...I know nobody asked for it :-) But they are only fun if you make them before the events...A massive, unpriced risk looms over financial markets... Its scale defies prediction. The current administration’s safeguards are faltering, running like a government still in FSD beta. With U.S. debt dismissed as “just debt,” inflationary tariffs in play, and an emergency Fed rate hike imminent, shockwav…

> Trump says US may have less debt than thought because of fraud - Trump says some Treasury payments might 'not count'

Ugh, is that different words for "we ain't paying this because we say it's fraud"?

Re: DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data

#272

Post by api »

maCDzP wrote: post #110

European here, giving my two cents on how this looks from the other side of the Atlantic. Heh In my country there are laws stopping agencies doing a simple SQL join between two databases, even within the same government agency. There is a separate agency that handles the requests when agencies want to join information. I am not an expert in the matter. But my gut is telling me that our experiences with east Germany a…

> check and balances to make it slow. It’s deliberate inefficiency.

It’s an important thing about free countries that is seldom appreciated: aspects of their governments are designed to be tar pits, on purpose. It’s a way of restraining government.

I have a personal saying that touches on something adjacent. “I like my politicians boring. Interesting government was a major cause of death in the twentieth century.”

When I think of governments that are both interesting and streamlined I think of the Nazis, the Khmer Rouge, Stalin era USSR, Maoist purges, etc.

Re: DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data

#273

Post by scarab92 »

javcasas wrote: post #258
maCDzP wrote: post #110

European here, giving my two cents on how this looks from the other side of the Atlantic. Heh In my country there are laws stopping agencies doing a simple SQL join between two databases, even within the same government agency. There is a separate agency that handles the requests when agencies want to join information. I am not an expert in the matter. But my gut is telling me that our experiences with east Germany a…

Do you know why in Portugal they have 4 different ID numbers? It is like that to prevent the state from persecuting people on the base that it is hard for a branch of the government to figure out who is someone based on a number from a different branch. Do you know why they want to prevent the government from persecuting people? Because it has already happened, and the portuguese don't want it to happen again.

[flagged]

Re: DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data

#274

Post by card_zero »

javcasas wrote: post #258
maCDzP wrote: post #110

European here, giving my two cents on how this looks from the other side of the Atlantic. Heh In my country there are laws stopping agencies doing a simple SQL join between two databases, even within the same government agency. There is a separate agency that handles the requests when agencies want to join information. I am not an expert in the matter. But my gut is telling me that our experiences with east Germany a…

Do you know why in Portugal they have 4 different ID numbers? It is like that to prevent the state from persecuting people on the base that it is hard for a branch of the government to figure out who is someone based on a number from a different branch. Do you know why they want to prevent the government from persecuting people? Because it has already happened, and the portuguese don't want it to happen again.

Dictatorship from 1926 to 1976, and yet a strangely obscure one, probably due to neutrality during world war two.

Re: DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data

#275

Post by throw0101d »

femto wrote: post #183
InsideOutSanta wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are laws, but you will get fired if you try to follow them, and lawsuits to remedy that take time. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/usaid-sec...

Is it true to say that in practise there are no laws here? If anyone in DOGE breaks the law, can't the President just issue a blanket pardon? If the President himself breaks the law, he argues that it was in the course of his official duties [1]. [1] https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf

> Is it true to say that in practise there are no laws here? If anyone in DOGE breaks the law, can't the President just issue a blanket pardon?

For federal laws, yes.

If you can find a state-level law that's been violated then he has no jurisdiction to pardeon.

Trump himself was charged at the state level twice (and already convicted once):

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecution_of_Donald_Trump_in...

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_election_racketeering_...

See also the civil case against him for rape:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Jean_Carroll_v._Donald_J._T...

Re: DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data

#277

Post by stackedinserter »

Etheryte wrote: post #242
willis936 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You personally are cool with me personally knowing your salary and where you live? Please just post that here right now.

That might sound incredibly foreign to you, but this is the norm in many Nordic countries, see Norway, Sweden and Finland, for a start. Tax returns for everyone are public, and so are addresses through a national registry.

Why do they need it? Besides dumb envy, why would I need someone's tax return? What's in it for me?

Re: DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data

#278

Post by tourist2d »

scarab92 wrote: post #80
wodenokoto wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually you don’t have access to “everything”. It might even be illegal to cross reference certain data, e.g., the same person or department might not even be allowed to have access to two databases. I don’t know if the cross reference is true for the US, but it is for other countries.

[flagged]

So more ambitiousness means you should get access to more user information?

Re: DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data

#279

Post by a-saleh »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #144
maCDzP wrote: post #110

European here, giving my two cents on how this looks from the other side of the Atlantic. Heh In my country there are laws stopping agencies doing a simple SQL join between two databases, even within the same government agency. There is a separate agency that handles the requests when agencies want to join information. I am not an expert in the matter. But my gut is telling me that our experiences with east Germany a…

> It’s deliberate inefficiency. Inefficiency is a useful property of many systems [0,1]. Current cultural obsessions around the word are a burden and mistake, and the word "efficiency" now feels rather overload with right-wing connotations. [0] https://cybershow.uk/blog/posts/efficiency/ [1] https://cybershow.uk/blog/posts/cash2/

I have strong feeling that in the past 50 or so years, we often have traded resiliency for efficiency. I think we might have gone too far.

That doesn't mean that being deliberately inefficient will improve resiliency. Also, some of the deliberate inefficiency (i.e. looking at weird thing us healthcae/health-insurance system has going on) is more ... extractive? That sounds like the word I am looking for.

Re: DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data

#280

Post by ethbr1 »

scarab92 wrote: post #273
javcasas wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know why in Portugal they have 4 different ID numbers? It is like that to prevent the state from persecuting people on the base that it is hard for a branch of the government to figure out who is someone based on a number from a different branch. Do you know why they want to prevent the government from persecuting people? Because it has already happened, and the portuguese don't want it to happen again.

[flagged]

And where can one find technical and transparent details about what data DOGE is looking at, why, and what safeguards they're taking?
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